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Friday, January 21, 2011

How Do We Eradicate Malaria? By Ignoring Eco-Fascists.

I am often conflicted when I see some Hollywood star lending their gravitas to a cause or political campaign. They after all enjoy the same First Amendment rights as the rest of us. The problem for me however is that they are also very often ignorant about the subjects on which they pontificate. Lacking the knowledge, experience, or wisdom to understand a subject does not stop a lot of folks, but the stardom gives the Hollywood crowd a megaphone to spout some of the most insane nonsense known to mankind. I'll give some examples. Shakira, stated that she would rather her concerts were attended by pigs than Jews, because of how the Israelis treat the, "Palestinians." I guess she is O.K. with the 50,000 Katusha rockets per year which rain down on Israeli neighborhoods targeting schools and farms. Andy Griffith is all over T.V. telling us that we're going to love the improvements made to Medicare via the new Health Care Debacle. All these commercials are airing even as State Medicare funds are zeroing out due to a cut off of Federal Funding. Madonna, who I am convinced slept through or skipped every High School science class in her less than A caliber academic career, is lecturing the rest of us on Global Warming. The height of the stupidity though has to be DDT.

DDT is a pesticide. We used this pesticide for approximately five years in this country prior to its being banned. After those five years, we had successfully eradicated Malaria, and Bed Bugs. How many lives were saved. Even now, there are many Americans who do not know that at one time, Malaria was also rampant in the United States. Enter the eco-fascist lobby. DDT was demonized, for some very suspicious and unproven claims about its dangers to the, "fragile," eco-system. Its use was prohibited around the globe. So where does that leave us. Well, it leaves us with today, and our good friend George Clooney. Clooney it seems, has contracted Malaria for the second time. Let me say, I like most of Clooney's movies. That being said, he is down with every loony position on the left that there is. He blames Israel for having the audacity to defend her very survival and not allowing themselves to be permanent targets for, "Palestinians," who want nothing but to murder her citizens. He is so smug in his eco-fascism, Southpark devoted an entire episode to his smug behavior. This time though, he is the victim of his own nonsense.

I do not wish Malaria on anyone. As a matter of fact, I say we should eradicate this disease from our planet entirely. We have the ability to do this. How many lives would have been saved had we put an end to Malaria in the late 1970's? Those are all deaths which are on the hands of liberals. One of the things which I dislike about the liberal movement world wide is that they never accept the responsibility for their actions or policy decisions. This is a clear example, extreme as it is, of that. Even as thousands contract this disease every year, we are told that saving the environment is more important than saving human lives. Humans are part of the environment as well. At the same time, my liberal friends are screaming that we need to do something about Malaria in Africa, the effects are horrible. You know what? I agree. We need to do something. We need to Use DDT for at least five years on a global scale, and put an end to Malaria and Bed Bugs once and for all. George Clooney should never have to contract Malaria again.

Some of you may object to my usage of the word fascist when describing the green crowd. Well, get a load of this little commercial that they made to promote the 10:10 initiative.

In their worldview, anyone who does not tow the green line, deserves to die. This is the very definition of fascism. It should also be noted, this is much more of an incitement to violence than anything Rush, Palin, Hannity, or even that old sick jerk Pat Buchanan has ever proffered.

8 comments:

You wrote: "We used this pesticide for approximately five years in this country prior to its being banned."

Are you speaking of the U.S.? DDT was used from 1946 until 1972, and occasionally after that. 26 years. It's use was devastating to wildlife.

You wrote: " After those five years, we had successfully eradicated Malaria, and Bed Bugs. How many lives were saved. Even now, there are many Americans who do not know that at one time, Malaria was also rampant in the United States.

TVA went after malaria hard when it was created in 1933. Without DDT, malaria was essentially eliminated from the U.S. before DDT even became available. (See here, for example:http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/history/#tva ) DDT was used extensively in the U.S. after 1946, but it was never the main tool of fighting malaria. Especially after 1952, most DDT was used on crops.

Bedbugs became resistant and immune to DDT by about 1958. Success against bedbugs came with other pesticides, not DDT. Research shows today's bedbug populations are at least highly resistant to DDT, and most of them are essentially immune to it.

You wrote: "Enter the eco-fascist lobby. DDT was demonized, for some very suspicious and unproven claims about its dangers to the, “fragile,” eco-system."

DDT was overused and abused for decades, despite it's well-known dangers. The U.S. government began to curb its use do to destruction to forest animals, in 1958. Fish kills across the U.S. -- including the massive 1961 fish kill in the Trinity River in Austin, Texas, and miles downstream -- piled on the evidence of the dangers of the stuff.

Rachel Carson's book that mentioned DDT, Silent Spring, was published in 1962. Despite a vicious and expensive public relations attack from DDT manufacturers, the book became a best seller. President Kennedy ordered a review of the scientific accuracy of the book, and on May 15, 1963, the President's Science Advisory Council issued a report that Carson was deadly accurate, with one exception -- she went too easy on DDT. (Since publication of the book, more than 1,000 separate, peer-review studies have been published clearly establishing that DDT harms wildlife in the ways Carson outlined, and in new ways unimagined by researchers in 1962.)

In 1970 and 1971, two federal courts, after trials showing DDT was uncontrollable in the wild, stayed orders banning all DDT use and production to wait for EPA hearings on DDT. In those federal trials, by the way, DDT defenders provided vigorous defenses of DDT.

EPA's hearing record in 1971 covered nearly 10,000 pages, and included testimony from more than 30 DDT manufacturing interests. The record clearly backed up the conclusions of the federal district courts. In late 1971, EPA ordered DDT use on agricultural crops be stopped in the U.S., but manufacturing be left alone for export, to fight malaria and other diseases. That order began the long recovery of key species like peregrine falcons, osprey, brown pelicans, and the bald eagle, which is now off the Endangered Species List.

The ban on DDT use on crops in the U.S. was one of the great triumphs of science in the 20th century. Today, we reap benefits of that ban, including healthy wildlife populations.

You wrote: "Its use was prohibited around the globe."

EPA's authority ends at the borders of the United States. Though DDT is listed as one of the "Dirty Dozen" most dangerous pollutants in the world, its use has never been banned in most of the world, including especially Africa and Asia where its use has been constant since 1946. Even today, under the 2001 treaty that pledges to get rid of DDT, any nation can used the stuff merely by writing the World Health Organization to tell the agency the country plans to use DDT. If a nation violates that clause, there is no penalty.

DDT manufacturing continues in India and North Korea, and occasionally in China. No nation using DDT as the chief weapon has ever succeeded in eradicating malaria. India is the world's largest user of DDT today, using more than the rest of the world combined -- but India's malaria problems continue.

DDT never was the sole panacea against malaria, nor is it today. Malaria is a much more complex problem than that. Malaria death rates are, today, the lowest they have been in human history. Death rates have been cut in half, then in half again, largely without DDT.

Please check your facts. The truth is a different story from the one related in the article.

Ed, thank you for your comments. As it turns out, DDT is the star of a junkscience.com article. Rachel Carson's book is thoroughly discredited, as is her overzealous and misleading interpretations of several scientific studies. follow the link to the article.

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.html

Also please note that while it is true that resistance does build up in mosquitos and bedbegs, behavior of these animals also changes. They still in fact do avoid areas where this chemical is used.

What this comes down to is a belief that human life is despensible to you, while non human life is precious. As you can see from the junkscience article, the evidence that DDT was actually to blame for the bald eagle going on the endangered list, or that the fisk kills were to blame is shoddy at best. I personally hold human life in higher regard than that.

At my blog I point out that most of the citations at Junk Science are, indeed, junk science. Research claimed to show DDT harmless was never done. Research claimed to show birds were unharmed instead showed the harms the other way. (Here’s just one example: http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/?s=DDT+%2Bdewitt )

Science is not done in secret. All of the studies on DDT are public, and there are no studies that show what Lyndon Larouche’s group claimed, even in the articles published under the name of Gordon Edwards.

In short, you’ve been hornswoggled by Junk Science. Odd truth in advertising — that site dispenses what it advertises, junk science.

Human life is precious, and when you rely on junk science and false claims, children die.

Malaria kills nearly a million people a year. Junk Science enables malaria to keep killing, persuading otherwise good people to do nothing because, the site, claims, DDT is a magic powder that only nasty environmentalists keep from African babies.

Think about that for a moment. EPA’s authority ends at the U.S. borders. EPA could not order DDT out of Africa. In truth, EPA ordered DDT manufacturing to continue in the U.S., effectively doubling the supply of DDT available for fighting malaria.

But DDT is not magic.

What this comes down to is belief — but science isn’t a religious exercise. Science is about facts. You may religiously believe that scientists are all liars, and that DDT is magic.

But it’s only a belief, contrary to facts.

A child dies every 30 seconds from malaria. Stop cheering malaria, and join with the science.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the citations for yourself. See what real malaria fighters say. Like the National Academies of Science:http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11017&page=19

See what Sonia Shah says, the author of The Fever.http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/the-malaria-wars-sonia-shah-answers-your-malaria-questions/

If you truly hold human life as precious, you’ll shed the junk science, and start working to save lives. Would I win a wager that you think life so precious you can admit error about DDT? I can hope. Lives depend on it.Reply

Ed, I find your arguments specious. You make an assumption that without DDT, people are doing nothing. I never advocated giving up other cures in favor of DDT. I should also point out to you, that I am not a religious zealot who views scientists as anything other than people who have dedicated their lives in persuit of the absolute truth of how our Universe works. Your argument about Junkscience.com stripped down is nothing more than an adhominem attack. You have attacked the post by attacking the messenger, while leaving the message alone. I have no idea of Larouche being involved with this site at all. I must admit surprise that the old committed communist is still alive. As for my personal opinions in solving problems, I take a do all you can approach. I have respect for science as a whole, physics, chemestry, etc. The subject of eco-science however pisses me off. The entire field of endeavor has become completely politicized. I have never had the misfortune to hear of, "scientific consensus," prior to your group. Peer review pannels are meaningless if peopled entirely of folks who wouldn't pass muster in any other field of science and have an obvious political agenda to advance. Mr. Mann's e-mails being made public has shaken any confidence in any peer reviewed eco-science study. Obviously, you had no problem with those fraudulent studies and in fact peer reviewed them straight to Government bodies the world over, all in an attempt to perpetrate a hoax. By the way, Stephen J. Milloy, the editor of Junkscience is a degreed scientist from John Hopkins University. I have heard that they have a teriffic reputation for graduating top notch scientists.

I'm making no assumptions about DDT, other than it's dangerous, especially in the way it can't be targeted. You assume one application of DDT does a trick -- when the truth is that DDT in fighting malaria is intended only for a once or twice application, to temporarily knock down a mosquito population.

Show me a correct citation from Junk Science. I can't find one. They made up a completely fatuous story about DDT and quail, editing Rachel Carson's award-winning prose to make it say something Carson did not write, then changing the conclusions of the underlying research by editing the part that said 'but then all the chicks died.' See here:http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2007/11/08/100-things-about-ddt-dissecting-10/

Will you stake your honor on such claims? I wouldn't.

So, if you really think scientists are not evil, why would you grant credence to those who claim they are, and edit their words to make them appear so?

I'm not talking about Mann -- but it's mighty odd to me you defend thieves against scientists who worked for 30 years in relative obscurity, coming to the same conclusions, and who now have official investigations from universities, parliaments and law enforcement agencies noting they did nothing wrong.

I have serious problems with fraudulent claims of fraud.

Milloy used to spin for tobacco companies. They had a lot of degreed scientists in their employ. A degree is no guarantee of ethics.

But peer review is a bulwark against unethical behavior, even when imperfect.

Milloy's the guy who publishes the lies about DeWitt and the quails. Check it out. Don't take my word for it. See if you can find the papers and read the real conclusions, as I did.

Or even quicker, look at the claims Milloy makes about eagles at the Junk Science site. Did Audubon really count more eagles during DDT's highest use? Check the library -- from 1941 through 1978, in Audubon Magazine, Milloy's claims cannot be borne out. Call Audubon and ask them. Check out the book I noted from NAS.

Call the Gates Foundation and ask them about their need for DDT to fight malaria. Call WHO. Go to London, visit Socrates Litsios.

I regret ecology studies make you angry. Had I been played for a sucker the way Milloy hopes to play everyone, I'd be angry, too, once I discovered the facts.

Consider this: Milloy says Ruckelshaus's ban on DDT in 1972 caused WHO to stop using DDT in Africa.

First, WHO never passed a policy to stop using DDT. But they did nearly stop using it when DDT overuse on crops bred DDT-resistant mosquitoes. That was in 1965.

So Milloy's claim is that EPA's action in 1972 traveled back in time to 1965. Does he really think we're unable to read calendars?

Milloy claims that EPA's action left mosquitoes able to migrate and avoid to places where DDT was used. EPA's ban covered the U.S. only -- essentially Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, California and Louisiana, where cotton is grown. Mosquitoes don't migrate from Arkansas to Africa.

Milloy claims that EPA's action in 1972 cut off DDT supplies to Africa. But read Ruckelshaus's order: It specifically exempted DDT manufacture, to leave more available for export -- to where? Africa.

Seriously. Rachel Carson was right the first time. Read her book for starters.

About Me

As a graduate of The Ohio State University, I began working as an Assistant Manager in a Woolworth store in 1986. After spending 19 years in retail management, I decided to change my life. I transitioned into the Financial Services industry. I currently work as a Financial Planner with my own firm in Rocky River, Ohio. Along the way I managed to collect 4 children and two ex-wives. My political views started out on the left, but as time went on, and I realized that consequences mattered, I gradually became more conservative.
On another note, as I am brand spanking new to this blogging thing, please feel free to leave comments as to how I can improve in any comment thread. Thank you for your help.